Overpopulation is the Elephant in the Room

LightWorker111

If you noticed an elephant in the room, that would be worth a conversational mention, do you agree? If people weren’t talking about the large land mammal in their midst, wouldn’t that seem strange?

Overpopulation is the biggest problem facing Planet Earth. Yet, no one ever talks about it. Limiting the number of humans based on available resources is “an obvious problem or difficult situation that people do not want to talk about” – the elephant in our room.

Ignorance may be bliss, but ignoring the mechanics of population growth is the most probable cause of our collective extinction. Incredibly, the majority of American public schools do not teach the simple mathematical principle that determines how many people are born.

There is an ancient legend from India that illustrates how “exponential growth” works. A certain local king loved to play chess with pilgrims visiting his court. One day, a sage passing through the kingdom accepted the monarch’s challenge and named his reward if he won: a single grain of rice on the first chessboard square, to be doubled on every consequent one. The sage won the game and the king ordered a bag of rice to pay the good man.

Now, imagine a chessboard with 64 (8 x 8) squares. Place one grain of rice in the upper left corner, as shown in the drawing below:

The next square to the right has two grains of rice (1 x 2), the next one has four (2 x 2), and the next one has eight (4 x 2), and so forth. The fabled king discovered, much to his chagrin, that he needed to pony up a million grains of rice by the time he reached the 21st square – with 67 doublings still to go! According to the Singularity Symposium:

“On the sixty fourth square the king would have had to put more than 18,000,000,000,000,000,000 grains of rice which is equal to about 210 billion tons and is allegedly sufficient to cover the whole territory of India with a meter thick layer of rice.”

The actual number in the above example, is 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 – over 18.4 quintillion:

If you hadn’t guessed, in this metaphor, grains of rice represent individual people. Although, in fact, two parents don’t always produce four children (two to replace them plus two more to double the number of children), statistics show that humans are breeding at a much higher rate, far outpacing the death rate from natural causes, disease, and warfare.

Even though human population is slowing down, “by 2015, despite a low expected 1% growth rate, experts estimate there will be 7 billion people on the planet. By 2050, there may be as many as 10 billion people living on Earth.”

Consider how an additional 4 billion people on Earth in just over 30 years will impact quality of life – and perhaps survival itself. The Center for Biological Diversity produced a graph showing human population (the purple line) meeting the green extinction line before 2050. They claim that “if the current course is not altered, we’ll reach 8 billion by 2020 and 9 to 15 billion (likely the former) by 2050.”

Although “developing nations” (read: impoverished third-world countries) “have large numbers of people who are illiterate, live below the poverty line and have little or no knowledge about family planning,” according to Conserve Energy Future, the United States is no poster child for population control.

Statista, the Statistics Portal shows the steady increase of resident population in the US from 1980 to 2017, from about 2-1/4 billion to 3-1/4 billion – that’s an extra one billion people in a little over 35 years!

But increased family size alone does not account for overpopulation in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. The Federation for American Immigration Reform is lobbying for immigration control, stating plainly that:

“The United States is already overpopulated in the sense that we are consuming our national ecological resources at an unsustainable rate…We now depend on foreign imports for 28.8 percent of our energy consumption.”

Overpopulation leads to shortages across the board: energy, food, water, essential services, and living space. But, incredibly, as FAIR shares, the US is ignoring this vital issue:

“The United States has a national environmental policy but no national population policy.”

The only country that has not only discussed the elephant in the room, but done something about it, is China. The Chinese outnumber all the rest of us, despite the fact that, between the 1980s and early 2016, the Chinese government imposed a one-child-per-family policy. Having a second child would have meant paying a 200,000 yuan ($31,250) fine, for one woman named Sun Mingmei, as reported by CNN in December 2015 – only a few months before the Chinese population policy relaxed.

China’s population policy met with harsh reproval from many other nations, including the United States. “How dare a national government control population through economic disincentives?” many of us thought.

If it’s any consolation to those critical of China’s actions, as of one year ago, CNBC confirmed that China’s population remained below the replacement level, “at which a population naturally replenishes itself from one generation to the next.”

The lesson learned from China is that population control is hard to get right, especially if residents are not inspired by knowledge, but rather punished for non-compliance.

People crowded by increased numbers need more laws to keep them under control, or so world governments believe. Everything Connects recalls the nightmare scenario one visionary author warned us about decades ago:

“Aldous Huxley predicted in 1958 that democracy is threatened due to overpopulation and could give rise to totalitarian style governments and it turns out he was right.”

The solution to global overpopulation is as surprisingly simple as the exponential math that is behind the problem: limit the number of children we have voluntarily. A lot of studies have gone into this life-saving remedy.

An organization called World Population Balance offers several actions anyone can take to address the elephant in the room, including raising awareness, starting leadership programs, hosting conferences, setting up think tanks, and circulating petitions. These folks boil the answer right on down for us:

“We must inspire humanity to reduce births below a two child average. Only then will population decline – humanely.”

Any questions?

57 Comments

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The population of the United States is a little over 300 million. It is not remotely close to 2 1/4 billion let alone in 3 1/4 billion

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Yes! During the first week of my “Environmental Geology” course at Hofstra University the main topic was always “our global population problem” – the reason for all our environmental issues. We reviewed China’s policy (as positive) and pointed out the global need for ZPG. But, like alleviating “global warming” (a later topic) population control is still not considered a major environmental issue. All true conservatives are (have to be) anti-abortion – so “the beat goes on!”

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More humans means more innovation, more specialization of labor, and more wealth for us all. We do not have a fixed pie. Thanks to the human intellect resources continually expand. Heard anything about “peak oil” recently? Today we have more people than ever and less starvation than ever.

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your right yet we are one bad harvest that around the world to turn your comments into a night mare. Yet scientist have worked on GMO food to increase yields. Yet the same people who care about the environmentalist shun the thought of eating or developing GMO products period

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Let me add I don’t care and the church will defend any control to the bitter end. I would be here when it’s to late. But don’t worry radical Islam will far exceed any estimates. Radical Islam are like locusts. Destroying all they have and moving on to destroy the new locations

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Until the world’s religions accept the fact that there is an overpopulation problem and stops pushing the “go forth and multiply” scenario, we will continue to have this problem. Most people feel it is their “God given right” to bear children and NO ONE can tell them not to. Our whole attitude toward reproduction has to change. We were also told, in the Bible, to be good stewards of the earth, and allowing overpopulation is not being a good steward.

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This is not the problem. The problem is land usage, allocation of resources and urban disconnection from nature. Yes, the population needs to level out gradually, but if we used our resources for the good of all, and utilized the many advanced technologies that are being held back by the existing powers, we would have plenty, and a much more humane and compassionate lifestyle.

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Your first mistake is buying into the lie. No, the world is not overpopulated. The problem is forced migration. God is able to maintain His Creation and Satan is able to deceive the gullible who refuse to believe in God! Your choice. The Bible is true. Read it.

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This is fake news. The birth rate in Europe and North America is already dangerously low, well below 2 children per family. That’s why China now doubled the allowable number of children a family can have. They found that the 1 child policy was not healthy for the country.

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The one child thinking by the Chinese government may work in
that country. However those families
that want more than on child have
other options available to them. They can abide by the one child rule
with the male child being the preferred choice in their countries or come to America and procreate
without any government barriers or restrictions to the number
of children their family can become.
IAs you pointed out this has put a
strain on resources here for accommodating this expansion if we
assumed based on statistical thinking
the fact that the average person is
indeed living a lot longer than prior
generations due to life style choices.

Thank you for this in depth article
on overpopulation and the ramifications it will impose on
everything down the road. Very
inciteful thinking.

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Come on. Entire population of earth 7 billion or so will easily fit in the state of Texas with plenty of room for all. Finally plenty of ways to feed through regular agriculture, hydroponics and more. This type of “scare” article would expect in Mother Jones etc not your publication. Regards – D Pruitt Greenville SC

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I have asked about this at numerous “ecological”talks. No one wants to address this. No one is willing to discuss it at all. This has been a concern of mine for decades – so much so that I consciously opted to have only one child..

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Over population is such a real big problem but as the article said no one wants to talk about it because It is an unpopular topic
One child policy either voluntary or by restriction is the only solution
Just look at some African countries there are so many young people that have no Job no hope and no future
It is inhuman to bring them into this world to suffer

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Someone needs to send this article, to all these many leaders, of all these many countries, that are bringing in thousands, if not millions, of “refugees”, that do not integrate into the many countries, that are being brought in, because “people are not having enough children”. That’s BS! And now, we will will have many killings, because of these leaders stupidity, and will never be free from an ideology that does not assimilate and aims to dominate!

Or if you don’t care for breitbart, how about GatestoneInstitute, where the first comment of the article, hits it on the head of correctness!

“Italy does not have the lowest fertility rate. It’s the financial situation that is very bad and the unemployment rate that discourages couples from having children. If the government cared more about its citizens than it cared about the banks and illegal migrants, the situation would be very different.”

And this is about the very sad state of Europe, but could easily be talking about the United States:

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Supposed overpopulation has been the excuse used by the global elite for decades now to incorporate measures to kill off masses of people via war, famine, disease, etc. They decided to either lower the birth rate (normalization of homosexuality, abortion, unannounced sterilization, etc), or raise the death rate. Now we’re being told neither has worked. These sorts of scare tactics are always used to justify various global taxes, control methods and pushes for totalitarianism in order to save us all from the “problem”. This “problem” is just another version of global cooling, I mean, global warming, I mean, climate change. If this particular scare continues to be pushed, we will see forced abortions happening here (U.S.) as they were/are in China. And, as always, follow the money.

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When you think about it — and you don’t have to think about it very long or hard — virtually all our problems can ultimately be traced back to too many people : a geometrically expanding population competing for a (geometrically ?) shrinking resource base.

What happened to “Zero Population Growth” and “Negative Population Growth” ? I haven’t hear or seen anything of or about either for probably well over a decade. We BADLY need both ZPG and NPG now — more than ever !

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This is totally false and has been proven WRONG. It is the same old garbage that the Club of Rome and the Frankfurt Institute have been pushing for most of the 20th century. The fact is that by the end of the 21st century there will be LESS people on the earth than now! As longevity and educational levels increase birth rates go DOWN! This is leftist propaganda . We will experience a slight rise in population for 10 to 25 years more and then projections are the populations will start to decrease.

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How about addressing the problem that the people who actually use up significantly more resources than they would ever need (I.e., British royal family) are the ones typically behind population control initiatives…

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It’s not about reducing the number of births but reducing the number of times a woman has sex, especially sex outside of marriage, since sex is what causes birthes. Why wasn’t that fact noted in the article?

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Wow, by penning just one article America’s population grew from 6% of world population to 50% of world population, what prolific breeders we are. You should probably check your “facts” before releasing your articles.

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The article says “billion” relating to the US population where it should say “100 million” in the sentence “Statista, the Statistics Portal shows the steady increase of resident population in the US from 1980 to 2017, from about 2-1/4 billion to 3-1/4 billion …”

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you are talking Agenda 21 or 20-30. Depopulation has already started by burning down the houses in Napa, Ventura, Santa Clarita and many, many more. moving people into small houses in larger groups can then be controlled..or air-born plagues to kill of off many at a time..just like the floods in Texas…killed off a lot..others were shot and swept out to sea…or the man made Hurricane of Puerto Rico… oh yes…depopulation is already beginning by some in power. or how about another war. that is what the banks and oil grabbing people in power want so the munitions can be sold and those in power can make more money and sell more heroin .. yes it is already in the works.

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Sorry boys but Your figures are wrong. America went from a population of just over 200 million to about 330 million now.
Not the the billions You mentioned. Secondly China has reversed its one child policy and now allows 2 children per family. The solution to so called over population is massive developement for the third world. As has been shown as countries become wealthier their population groth slows down.

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Do the math. There are 27,878,400 square foot in a square mile. If you gave 108,900 people a 16 by 16 square foot area to live or 256 sq foot per person, you could fit over 16 billion people into just the State of Montana.

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The elephant in the room is the exploitation of the earth’s resources and people for the purpose of financial gain and power. The physical requirements to sustain a person are a fraction of what the per capita consumption of the world is at present.
The air, water, and food chain have all been polluted. Eventually this will decrease our longevity and the population will correct itself in a very unpleasant way.

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The problem of over population is a LIE!!! There is enough for everyone on this earth. Problem is the people that create lack Governments and Elite so they can enslave and manipulate all humans. People are payed not to grow crops. The problem is THE PEOPLE IN CONTROL. Change the people in control and CHANGE THE WORLD.
Namaste

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Probably why homosexuality is being promoted, and is increasing. Add to this, ‘aids’ insurrection wars, etc. Next will come illness from dabbling in food processing, and spreading disease among the vulnerable…………..

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This is total BS. There is no evidence that this claim as any merit. The same claims have been made for centuries. In the 70’s that using the same modeling methods claimed that 3 billion people was the topping point. Not even close. The entire population of the world could fit easily within the borders of Texas. What these fearmongers can’t & don’t ever factor in are the advances in technologies. One of the claims in the 70’s was that land used to produce food stuffs would have to increase by a factor of 1,000 in order to feed the world. In fact land use decrease & food production increased.

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While most certainly being politically incorrect I submit the problem with overpopulation is real, but the worst part about it is the cultures who are the ones responsible for it. Somehow I can’t imagine a better world in which Islamists dominate the planet.

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The math is correct but we have managed so far by more efficient methods of food and resource use. We are far more likely to kill ouselves off by either a nuclear war or major nuclear accident, or some form of highly communicable disease that overwhelms us before it can be contained. Also, the random asteroid may do to current life on earth what was done to the dinosaurs, and let’s not forget about the various volcanic calderas that could erupt at any time that would fill the atmosphere with ash blocking out the sunlight which would kill most plant life and us along with it. Sooner or later something will get humanity and it probably won’t be overpopulation.

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As people’s perceived wealth increases so does their family size decrease. The population problem is tackled not by limiting population directly but by dealing with the issues that promote population growth.
The US of A has been and continues, as do most developed and developing economies, on a path of constant growth, most of which is excess consumption. Fail to address this Elephant In The Room and you will fail completely to avert the disaster you forecast.
Quantity of life does not equate to Quality of life.
The higher the Quality of life the less people breed. Simple fact.
Over consumption is the enemy of human survival, not because there are too many people consuming but because people are consuming far too much most of it rubbish made from precious and often non renewable resources.. And then it is landfill pollution.

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However, there are countries and nationalities that see over population as a way of conquering other countries into their identity. The over population of the the United States is not due to birth, it is due to false belief that we the United States can have unlimited borders and should not restrict any people from coming to our country. The Elephant in the room is NOT overpopulation, it is the use of population as a militarized option to conquering countries without firing a shot.

Birth, especially from third world countries, is seen as hope. A way to continue the lineage of their family, and as much of a struggle it becomes, it still presents hope that the future is there.

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Yes questions…why then are we allowing muslims into the USA that are on welfare to reproduce at 6 to 10 children per couple, The answer is obvious, the USA has become weak and eventually (under 30 years ) w ill be overtaken by muslims and will no longer exist. fact the facts all you terrible, terrible Christian white people.

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thank you for bringing up this extremely important subject. Stop breeding so many kids. READ. STOP
PROCREATING. GET A LIFE. TAKE CARE OF THE STREET CHILDREN
IN INDIA. GET BIRTH CONTROL,
TUBE TYING, VASECTOMYS IN ALL
3RD WORLD COUNTRIES POST HASTE. WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG
FOR NOTHING TO CHANGE ? ? ? ?
AGAINST ABORTION ? SO DONT
HAVE ONE. ITS NOBODY’S BUSINESS TO PREVENT.

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Though in theory, I agree with your premise concerning population control, I wish to point out that you have misread the information provided by Statista concerning population growth in the US from 1980 to 2017. The numbers that you have provided, though digitally correct i.e. 2-1/4 and 3-1/4, should actually be read in ‘hundred millions’ not billions (see https://www.statista.com/statistics/183457/united-states–resident-population/). And though I do not have any thoughts as to whether a population increase of 100 million in 37 years is a large leap, I also wish to point out that the population of the US should significantly decrease within the next 15 years as baby boomers ‘die out’. At this time, there are 75 million baby boomers in the US. Currently, that’s 1/4 of the US population. So whether or not the US is a poster child for population growth, I believe the lesson to be learned here is that population dynamics cannot (perhaps should not) simply be relegated to the realms of an arithmetric equation. That said, thank you raising awareness of the issue. As a last note, as long as I am adding my two cents, I believe all to often there is a tendency to consider sustainable resources as referring to commodities AKA natural resources: gold, silver, tin, zinc, fossil fuels or even real estate. I should like to point out, as most young people are discovering, that one of the scarcest commodities ‘out there’ today is good jobs or even enough jobs. And if, indeed, there is one good reason to control population, it’s because the job market is currently not sustainable.

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It’s about time we saw the media address this issue. The current catholic policy that allows “God” to decide how many children a couple will have will certainly expediate our demise. Imagine if all humans on earth abided by this ludicrous insanity, we would already have destroyed our beautiful planet.
I often bring up this topic in conversation despite its controversial nature but truly, we would not have a tenth of the crime, murders extinctions and climate concerns we have today if we had 2 billion people on earth now. Please spread this reform as quickly as possible so we don’t have to face the grim reality of selfish human and more importantly nature’s extinction.

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Dr. Hans Rosling has done some interesting statistical work on the drivers of population growth (see his TED talks) which make a compelling case that population will level out at approx 11 billion people in late 21st century.

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The US birth rate is just barely enough to maintain the population. Europe is below sustinance level. any Increases are coming from immigration. most of the population growth is in Muslim countries, India, & some Asian countries.

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The UN already have a program for this……. it’s called agenda 2030 but it uses eugenics as the tool for population control, hidden under the guise called a “sustainable development goal”. I do fear for my future as people my age get old the eugenics program will crank into action as we are seen as a burden instead of a person

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Population now is unsustainable with our current technology, hopefully we will get better crop yields with newer crop strains, and energy processes (Cold Fusion), reclaiming and accessing the Oceans of water deeper in the Earths mantel, and moving to laboratory created proteins, instead of animal. IMHO , we are on the brink of these new feeding, energy, and high density living processes, in about 15 years or less. Beyond 2050 we will barring War, natural calamity or Extension Event Cosmic disasters, will be moving off world, preferable to Mars.

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Good Grief, Charlie Brown! Look up the Malthusian Theory. This is old news since this theory of overpopulation was started long ago. Don’t believe it for one second. The Globalist use this old theory to dupe the masses so as to put into place their global policies and their reasoning to control us.